u/DryAdvertising8508

I'm a tank main (champ thor) trying to learn dps heroes and this week's task is Magik. I'm having a blast in 18v18 and doom match with her and have a great grasp of her combos and her interactions, but 6v6 is another beast entirely. Some games I'll have a decent time in brawl, I'll be able to pick off a support early, and other games i just can't make any space without getting insta-peeled. With Thor, if I'm getting insta-peeled and can't off angle, I'll often just swap to brawling the tank(s) or i'll troll high ground without committing to a dive and trying to pot shot with Rune. But you can't really do that as effectively with Magik.

How do you play into your counters? How do you play into uncomfortable situations?

On my old account I did something like this with Hulk back in season 3.5 and suggested that Clap gave Shield cooldown + Extra charge of Clap. Now Hulk has both so I was hoping to manifest the same energy for Blade.

1. The Torch Buff: Increase the effectiveness of Hunter's Shotgun. The Slug projectile now breaks into shrapnel at 7.5m (was 10m). The shrapnel projectile speed is buffed to 180m/s and has about 30% less spread. Damage Falloff begins at 20m, decreasing to 65% at 30m (was 15m, decreasing to 50% at 30m).
2. The Thor Buff: Daywalker Dash now can be aimed during the dash, allowing for quick change of directions during the dash. (credit u/expensivebreadsticks)
3. The Luna / Thing buff: Blade now has a new ability (on F). [If you choose this one, propose an ability, like Exorcism Round from the Shotgun tree of Blood Hunt, or a version of Reap that isn't an instant KO assassination.] Example Idea: a shotgun-specific ability to shoot an exorcism bullet, and if you hit you can teleport to your target (credit u/gogule2)
4. The much-needed Ult Buff: Thousand-Fold Slash now creates a zone of slashes around each hero hit, for every hero hit. Each hero hit can move out of the zone (the zone does not move with them), but moving out would be as if they were in the center of the current thousand-fold slash. As to not be entirely useless if you don't hit anyone, Blade leaves behind a field that applies bleed. (Basically this concept by u/blade_main6969)

https://preview.redd.it/9v2x16qpgj3h1.png?width=6000&format=png&auto=webp&s=4b85e170f3a7822eacb84644dbd1038f65170b1a

5. Piercing -- a daywalker dash that pierces through enemies, allowing Blade for a cleaner exit instead of locking Blade to the first target that he hits. I'm not sure where to stick this dash tbh. Maybe as part of his sword form out of bloodline awakening? The issue is, a lot of people have the setting that auto switches to your shotgun if you exit bloodline awakening, so maybe at 10 stacks Blade's daywalker dash goes through enemies (and maybe even does more damage) instead of stops at the first enemy, which would make sense for a clean exit.

6. Your suggestion instead of the above

Personally I'd go with #1 and #4 as the biggest weaknesses I find for Blade are his ult's (lack of) effectiveness and his shotgun's (lack of) oomph.

As a champ Thor + Lord on 10/14 tanks, I've dug my heels in and grinded out DPS as of late (now Blade, especially with how good he is into Dino).

Lord check / proof

It's unreal how different the DPS experience is. (I've been through it before, lording Bucky, then Iron Man, then Daredevil, but it's been REALLY apparent as of late how much of a difference the DPS experience is.)

1. You can do SO much cardio and bypass most if not all of the blame. The supports will always get it first, even if you're on a D-tier character. I've had multiple games early on in learning Blade where I had to stop teammates from flaming supports and just say "hey i've been terrible and doing nothing, yell at me first."

2. If anyone calls you out for playing bad, there's a good chance that the DPS on your team, if you know them or not, and even the DPS on the other team, will run cover for you. I've had spider-man teammates go 18 and 21 with 13 finals, and the enemy team will say "You know, the spider-man was really impactful." Running it down and refusing to play your life isn't impactful when you can't get more finals than deaths. "Back fast" assumes a trade but when you're staring at the respawn screen for at least 3 and a half full minutes (10s per death, 15s per overtime death), it's not value.

3. It's MUCH easier to secure Ace / MVP / SVP. You just have to be better than the average player with that character. Well, it turns out, it's a LOT easier to secure ace / mvp on a DPS than it is on a tank, because the average DPS player is just that much worse.

QP stats, Blade grind vs. Main games

36 matches as blade, 9 mvps, 2 svps, or a 25% MVP rate (1 out of every 3 wins is an MVP), 30.5% ace rate

17 maches as Thor, 3 MVPs, 2 svps, or a 16% MVP rate (1 out of every 4 wins is an MVP, 29.4% ace rate) --> this is my CHAMPION hero btw. I'm 0-0 mvp/svp on 15 games of dino, 1-1 mvp/svp on 14 games of hulk.

4. If you just do your job (peel for supports, force 2v1s, play with your team, combo ults) instead of go on solo missions trying to 1v6, you get unreal amounts of glaze. You know, the stuff that every tank player already innately knows?

5. If you have like even okay aim on certain characters, you just pick up KOs for free. No wonder so many dps players are brain rotted to shit. This role hands you value CONSTANTLY. After 60+ hours on cap and hulk, where every single KO you pick up feels earned and calculated, aiming into a crowd with Bucky and picking up 2 finals by gigantic log shaped headshots, scoping out an isolated target with daredevil by using radar (free walhacks) and hitting a combo with batons (auto aim ability btw), or just even dash --> m1 with blade feels ridiculous by comparison.

6. Blade could and should be an awesome beefy dps type tank. He's a lot like the reverse of Thor, who uses his main resources for burst damage + range, as a finisher / burst damage but not a melee engage, locking him out of movement, Blade uses his main resource (sword dash to max stacks) to engage, and pokes from afar in neutral. Both have terrible ults, but Blade with 150 more HP would go from D-tier duelist to A-tier tank. Increase his model by 15%, MAYBE reduce a little bit of damage, and let blade players go to town. With 350HP i sometimes feel like I can 1v4. I really don't get why so many people were hell-bent on "Blade's name is blade he can't be anything but a duelist" when he really plays like a beefy dps right now.